Ashoka leading Egypt / Bulgaria / Japan -- Standard -- Pangea & Islands -- Deity -- Rest default
95 + 35 + 19 = 149 turns
Antiquity Mementos: Sci attr + Culture attr // Exploration Mementos: Sci attr + Settler movement // Modern Mementos: NoteG + Lotus
All credit to ValleTomate since their notes were super useful. I played it slightly differently in a few places but the strat was the same.
Antiquity: Standard 95 turn antiquity getting all 4 legacy paths and a civ wipe. The only interesting choice was a narrative event offering a quest for expansionist attribute or a chariot and I took the chariot. It was around turn 50 and I was about to go to war with Frederick of Rome + I was going to go for cavalry in exploration to take advantage of Bulgaria's UU. At the time it felt like the right choice as I ended up wiping his two settlements in 3 turns (requiring that early chariot) because I caught him with only one unit in the 2nd settlement. Capital went down the turn I declared war. It felt like this boosted the age tempo a lot with what else I was able to do by not wasting any resources on that civ wipe. I got both terracotta and theodoric. I hard built one general before terracotta to end the age with 3 (and got another from the wonder at the start of exploration). First commander went down the assault tree as usual but the others I went first assault, first maneuver, then down the logistics tree for pillaging bonus. Conquered 4 settlements (2 Frederick of Rome and 2 Xerxes of Persia), settled Cap + 6 more for 11 settlements with 5 cities. Converting 3 more at the start of exploration for 8 cities w/ Eco Golden Age.
Exploration: This played a bit differently than ValleTomates' game -- I got all 4 legacy paths and 3 civ wipes, no future tech or civic (and I wasn't even close to getting one). My yields were significantly lower than theirs. A few other differences: I only ran the 40% to settlers for the first celebration because I ended up with something like an 8 turn gap between my 1st and 2nd celebrations. So I just took the 20% culture from there forward. This resulted in less settlements, but that was sort of my thinking going in because I wanted to test the diminishing returns of settlements over a certain amount. I finished with 62 settlements vs their 78 but had 50 settlements one turn earlier on 26. I was however able to begin pillaging immediately in exploration which of course helps a lot. I was in the middle of the map, so going in I was worried about getting any treasure fleet age progress. It took me what felt like a long time to get a settlement to a distant land.. but it was a 100 RNG roll (see screenshot). That plus some decent TRs on the other side of the starting continent, plus getting Havana wonder (great callout), I was getting 7 TF from my first distant lands settlement. I got two of those over. I definitely saved a turn by choosing the TF movement religion bonus. It's hard to imagine getting better than 35 turns in exploration. But I am stumped by how much lower my yields were than ValleTomate (<50% science -- even as pre-nerf Egypt still probably about half culture as well), so it's possible that with a future tech/civic you could shave a few turns by getting 2 futures (20 pts) vs the last tick on the economic age progress (20 pts). I did build Erdene Zuu but got very little benefit from it as I focused on getting warehouse quarters everywhere for lyceums in modern and never got close to a future civic. I did almost exclusively resort towns in exploration and modern (a few more mining towns where gold was much better, but I had a ton of natural happiness tiles in every settlement). In the end, 11/62 were cities with Universities.
Edit: Realized a major blunder in that I forgot Monasteries existed. I think I left easily another 400+ science on the table. Could even be double that because with this build you end up with a ton of towns with almost infinite rural tiles not adjacent to any districts.
Modern: Felt great going into modern then not so great when I saw how low my yields were, only one military IP, and no science IP. I wasn't sure I'd break 150 total turns, needing a sub 20 turn age. But the yields ramped up fast from a ton of tea, I think 12. So I caught up quick and moved through the tree fast. Japan for sure was better than nerfed Russia as their overflow triggers were necessary, even while having access to pillage overflows. I only kept one city, my original capital, and built oxford in there, saving it until the end to trigger almost all of the last project. I was a tiny bit of science away from triggering another mastery, shaving a turn, but couldn't get it. This for sure can be faster with my setup and obviously faster with the other playthrough setup.
This exact leader and civ combo is 100% unmatched and nothing will beat it. Unlimited settlements is so OP. Egypt nerfed is still fantastic. Bulgaria is insane. Japan maybe can get replaced with a better civ in the future, but the first two I think as is will not get outperformed. Last note, it is indeed SUPER TEDIOUS switching towns to growing and back... Playing one turn in exploration between turns 15-35 was excruciating, but glad I powered through and got to experience the full strength of this combo. Looking forward to seeing someone get a better result -- Cheers all!
. If you look at the bottom left minimap, you will see that the whole map is explored, every tile. I discovered by chance that if a growth event pushes your Tehina to the land, it will remain there. From there it was just a matter of ensuring that the Tehina was not killed and that it did not embark again.
